A Muddled Thought

Chinaco, a name most people aren’t nearly as familiar with as they are brands such as Don Julio, Partida, Tres Generaciones, Siembra Azul or even Casa Noble. Which is surprising as it was one of the first small batched tequilas to hit the market. Chinaco began to hit US shelves in 1983, years before any of its competitors.

We had the opportunity to taste through Chinaco’s core line of tequila’s which consists of a Blanco, Reposado and Anejo offering. They also offer an Extra Anejo known as Negro and a special 30th anniversary bottling known as Emperador.

Starting with Chinaco Blanco, you’re presented with a spirit that leads in with a very soft nose, so soft that it exhudes a layer of elegance not usually found in most blanco tequilas.

Once it hits the palate, it opens up with notes of velvety grass, a touch of nuttiness and ripe fruit almost that’s almost reminiscent of a tropical punch. It ends with a smooth finish that’s filled with characters of citrus and agave.
A must try specimen of blanco tequila. This would be a perfect example of tequila to introduce to someone that thinks all tequila is normally as harsh as those brands they shot in college bars. The floral and soft notes of Chinaco Blanco will truly open their eyes to what tequila should be.

Final Score: 9.5/10

Moving on to the Reposado, as the blanco embodied soft flavors of fruit, and a relaxing tequila coma, it’s slightly older brother smacks the taste buds awake from the soothing coma that the Blanco left you in with spicy notes that are mellowed by hints of cocoa, sweet hazelnut, ginger and cardamom. As you finish that sip you’re left with warming hints of cocoa, with a backbone of spiciness and nuances of espresso.

Final Score: 9/10

And finishing this look at Chinaco’s lineup we close out with a look at their Anejo offering.

Chinaco Anejo opens with notes of sweet agave, and a slightly milder cocoa than we saw in the Reposado offering. The spirit follows this up by notes of bitter orange, nuances of cinnamon and subtle hints of anise.

Just as that sip finishes caressing your taste buds it leaves a final mark filled with characters of vanilla, spicy cinnamon and caramel.

Final Score:8.5/10

While we’ve written about Partida Elegante before in both an overview of Partida’s Product line as well as inclusion in our Father’s Day Gift Guide, we felt leaving it out of an article on unique spirits, just wouldn’t be fair.

Partida Elegante is quite simply one of the most impressive tequila’s you’ll find yourself coming across. Partida Elegante starts with 100% blue agave that’s harvested from Partida’s own private fields. This agave is then baked in stainless steel ovens to release the sugars that after fermenting for a period of 36-40 hours transform(by process of fermentation) into the spirit known as tequila. This unaged tequila is placed in American Oak Barrels that were previously used to age Jack Daniels whiskey. The tequila sits in these barrels for a period ranging from 36-40 months. When the distiller deems it ready, thus is born Partida Elegante, Extra Anejo. With a limit of about 1200 bottles, this is one of those spirits that is truly one of a kind and worth tracking down for a sip or two.

Partida Elegante is a truly phenomenal spirit that seduces the palate from the start with aromas of sweet pristine agave so mesmerizing that they instantly conjure images of the sun setting in Mexico over the fields of Jalisco.

Upon further inspection bouquets of cocoa, caramel and espresso overwhelm the brain.
Taking that first sip is an experience in itself. Those aromas of agave that poured out earlier , now engulf the palate, as does a caramel that reminds one of candied apples, and specks of dried cherries, that’s followed up by cocoa that is ever so slightly caressed by cinnamon. Flavors of sweet vanilla ice cream, and burnt orange decided to show themselves towards my last few sips.

With a spirit, much less a tequila this well crafted, you find yourself picking new flavors and nuances with each sip.

A tequila that’s $350 a bottle is not something that is common, even in these days of high-end and handcrafted spirits. Partida Elegante is thagift you give to spirit enthusiast or bartender who just got married, the bottle you open when celebrating a major life changing event or something you share on a weekend with your closest friends. If you can find one of the 1220 bottles available throughout the world, and you have the opportunity to purchase this incredible spirit, do so. Save it for a special occasion, and when that day comes, know you have a spirit worth of such an occasion.

Partida Elegante Extra Añejo

I recently took a look at a new offering in the Tequila Market, from a company based out of Arizona, Tequila Cruz. According to Tequila Cruz’s website they’ve won several awards for their reposado offering. So I was definitely looking forward to sampling this product. When I finally had the opportunity to sample this tequila I was a bit surprised at how the spirit tasted.

Upon taking the first sip, Tequila Cruz’s reposado has an initial feel on the mouth that resembles a heavy gel like water. While you do get some of the expected notes of agave, and citrus, followed up by the occasional hint of vanilla, the spirit itself is not as smooth as one would expect a tequila being billed as a “flagship product” to be. The spirit ends with a very rough finish that is a bit on the harsh side with a hint of burn on that final drop.

Tequila Cruz advised me that they age their Reposado in American oak barrels for up to five months before bottling.

My experience with aged spirits including tequilas, is that after this amount of time the spirit should pick up some color, whether it’s a brown, orange or other dark hue. The reposado sampled was as clear as an unaged blanco specimen. When I inquired about this with Tequila Cruz, they advised that they use a special filtering technique, prior to bottling. Perhaps this is where all the issues I ran into stem from, unfortunately I can only report about my individual experience which was quite disappointment.

I had really high hopes for Tequila Cruz’s Reposado due to it having won several awards including the gold medal in 2009’s San Francisco’s World Spirits Completion. Unfortunately after tasting the spirit, I’m sorry to say it failed to live up to any of these expectations.

Final Score :3/10

Retailing in the low twenty dollar range, Hornitos Plata Tequila is a a nice introductory tequila if your looking to introduce the spirit to someone whose only experience has been those harsher brands. Hornitos Plata (unaged) tequila begins with light floral notes that are followed up with characters of cinnamon, touches of black pepper, balanced with minute inklings of sweet vanilla that ends with a smooth finish that introduces notes of lime.

If you prefer a cocktail as opposed to neat, try something a bit traditional like a Margarita.

The usual recipe being something like:

2oz of Plata(or Blanco) Tequila
3/4 Cointreau
3/4 Lime Juice

Note:If you like your Margarita more sweet than tart, add about 1/2 oz of Simple Syrup.

A Traditional Margarita

Or for something that might fit with the upcoming holidays a new eggnog inspired recipe using Hornitos Plata Tequila.

Mischievous Winter Nog
1 ¾ Hornitos Plata
1 oz Chai Tea Syrup
1 Dash Grapefruit Bitters
3/4 Amarula Liquor
Eggwhite
Top with Cinnamon

A Mischievous Winter Evening. A combination of Hornitos Plata, Chai Tea Syrup, Grapefruit Bitters,and Amarula Liquor.

Lunazul Tequila, a value priced and yet impressive blanco tequila. So flavorful you can sip it on its own.
We previously looked at Lunazul Blanco earlier this year, but felt it was worth a mention as it’s priced at around twenty dollars and is on par with most of its higher priced competitors who range in price between thirty and forty dollars.

With flavors that include espresso, orange cream, cinnamon and sweet agave in each sip, this is anything but a spirit that tastes like those other lower priced tequilas.
A great gift for any spirits lover, anyone who enjoys tequila or anyone that you might be looking to introduce to something new.

While we looked at Tanteo Tequila’s Chocolate offering, earlier this year, we decided with the holidays coming up, to take another look at it both as a stand alone spirit as well as in some new cocktails.

Tanteo Chocolate Tequila starts off with a nose of smokey cocoa.
This nose is followed up with a spirit filled with characters of milk chocolate coupled with slight hint of smokiness, creating a balanced flavor of a melted milk chocolate, with occasional hints of hazelnut.

With being the only chocolate flavored Tequila on the market, Tanteo makes for an interesting gift for anyone who enjoys a different kind of spirit or tequila.

While it can sipped neat, Tanteo’s Chocolate really begins to show its talents in cocktails. Here’s a few new ones to try …

The Great Daze
2oz Tanteo Chocolate Tequila
3/4 oz Aperol
1oz Espresso Syrup
2 Dashes Grapefruit Bitters

The Great Daze. A combination of Tanteo Chocolate Tequila, Aperol, Espresso Syrup, and Grapefruit Bitters.

2oz Tanteo Chocolate Tequila
¾ Creme De Cacao
¾ Navan Vanilla Liquor
2 Dashes Bitter Truth Mole Bitters
Egg White
Shake Dry with Eggwhite
Shake with Ice
Serve in Collins Glass
Top with Club Soda

Not Your Pappy’s Eggcream. A combination of Tanteo Chocolate Tequila, Navan Vanilla Liquor,, Creme De Cacao,Mole Bitters and Eggwhite. Top with Club Soda.

Nog Nog Whose There?

2 oz of Tanteo Chocolate Tequila
1 Whole Egg
1 oz of Cinnamon Syrup
1 oz of Heavy Cream
¾ of Maraska Maraschino Liquor

After taking a look at Don Julio’s Blanco and Reposado offerings several weeks ago, I decided to sample their 1942 offering. One of the two flagship products in the Don Julio line, the 1942 bottling is anejo offering that’s aged up to two years after going through a second distillation in a separate pot still known only as “Still Number 6″.

Don Julio 1942 starts off with a unique nose filled with hints of orange cream and mild agave.

After tasting the Don Julio 1942, the word wow popped into my head. My palate was hit with an impressive array of flavors including cocoa, hazelnut, vanilla cream and espresso. All flavors that you’d expect to find in a high quality anejo. I was then totally caught off guard by some new flavors that I wasn’t expecting to find.

Throughout each sip of the tequila, the beautiful flavor of orange marmalade resonated. It conjured childhood memories, long since passed, spent enjoying this sublime flavor during Sunday breakfasts..

Along side those magnificent notes of orange marmalade were spectacular defined pockets of sweet vanilla that cohabited each sip as if you were tasting pure vanilla beans.

Don Julio’s 1942 Tequila is a magnificent extra anejo offering that should be tried by any tequila aficionado.

Final Rating: 9.5/10

Often in reviews of spirits I try and create an original cocktail or three that utilize that particular spirit as a base.

With a tequila such as Cazadores Anejo, it was easy to come up with a few cocktails that worked using it as its base.

Cazadores Anejo is one of those spirits that you find yourself having trouble putting down while making tasting notes. From that first sip, you’re hit with flavors of cocoa, espresso, as well as vanilla bean and orange zest. With the flavors of vanilla bean and orange zest doing a waltz upon your taste buds, you’re then hit with something close to a flavor of orange creamsicle.

Based on the flavors that I observed upon sampling the spirit neat:

Final Score: 9/10

Now for a cocktail with the Cazadores Anejo.

This recipe was inspired by a drink served up by the phenomenal crew at PDT. They currently have a drink known as the Paddington that incorporates orange marmalade, rum, lillet blanc, grapefruit juice, and absinthe.

Thinking about the orange creamsicle notes that I came across in the Cazadores Anejo inspired me to create the “Laren’s Marmalade Surprise”. With the creation in hand being named after a close friend this drink hits just the right balance between both spicy and sweet, much as comes out in this individuals personality on a daily basis. Neither the drink nor the person ever comes off too sweet or too spicy.

“Laren’s Marmalade Surprise”

1 1//2 oz Cazadores Anejo
Bar Spoon of Orange Marmalade
¼ oz Lime Juice
½ oz Vanilla syrup
Muddled Jalepeno
2 Dashes Mole Bitters

Laren's Marmalade Surprise. A Combination of Cazadores Anejo, Orange Marmalade, Vanilla Syrup, Jalepeno and Mole Bitters

To follow up this first recipe, I decided to see what else I could come up with using the Cazadores Anejo as a base.

Taking inspiration from the classic Manhattan, here’s the 54th and 5th Cocktail:

1 ½ oz Cazadores Anejo
½ oz Benedictine
½ oz Carpano
¼ oz blood orange juice
2 dash mole bitter

The 54th and 5th. A combination of Cazadores Anejo, Benedictine, Carpano Antica, Blood Orange and Mole Bitters.

Don Julio Tequila starts off with high quality blue-agave grown in fields surrounding the town of Atotonilco, in Jalisco, Mexico. The Piña once hand-picked is then taken and steam-cooked for seventy two hours, and then grounded up prior to fermentation beginning. At this point, the fermented juices are distilled twice. Once distillation is complete, Don Julio bottles the Blanco immediately while the Reposado is left to age in American white oak barrels for eight months.

These precise steps create impressive representations of both a Blanco and Reposado Tequila, both with a balanced flavor profile that work great within cocktails.

Starting with a nose filled with notes of pepper, Don Julio Blanco marries these notes with tones of soft fruit. This creates a perfect unison of clean spice and sweetness with neither ever overpowering the other.

Final Score: 8.5/10

Mexican Harvest
1 ¾ oz Don Julio Blanco Tequila
1 oz Laird’s Applejack
1 oz Apple Cinnamon Syrup
½ oz Lime Juice
Muddled Jalepeno-2 Rings

The Mexican Harvest. A Combination of Don Julio Blanco, Muddled Peppers, Laird's Applejack, and Apple Cinnamon Syrup.

After being aged eight months in white American oak barrels, Don Julio Reposado is bottled with a perfume of sweet cocoa and agave that shows itself right upon removing the cap from the bottle. This is followed up with a very smooth Reposado offering that intertwines flavors of caramel, cocoa and occasional hints of espresso.

Final Score: 9/10

A Sip and a Blink
2 oz Don Julio Reposado
2 Dashes Mole Bitters
1/2 oz Carpano Antica
¼ oz Lime Juice
Eggwhite

Rinse a chilled coupe glass with a barspoons worth of Mata Hari Absinthe
(Lighter and lacks the heavier anise notes other Absinthes have)

Note:One of those drinks that if not sipped carefully, can go down very quickly.

A Sip and a Blink. A Combination of Don Julio Reposado, Mole Bitters, Carpano Antica, and Eggwhite.

After taking a look at El Diamante Del Cielo’s Anejo offering a few weeks ago,I was curious to see how the Blanco and Reposado offerings they produced fared.

Using the same triple distillation system used in the Anejo offering in which the heads and tails of the spirit are discarded and only the heart remains, allows a flavorful offering in both El Diamante’s other two offerings.

How flavorful?

Well, the Blanco hits you with a very clean, nose of pure sweet agave. It then follows this up in the first sip with notes of floral agave, followed up by minor notes of cream.

A simple yet nicely executed Blanco. With its simplistic and not overly complicated flavor profile, this would work great in any cocktail that calls for a Blanco tequila.

Final Score:8/10

The “Jan Brady” of the El Diamante Del Cielo, the Reposado sits firmly between their Blanco and Anejo offerings in its flavor profile.

While not sharing all the same flavors hidden within each sip of the Anejo offering, the Reposado starts off with a nose filled with a sweetness that made me think of a bourbon. This is due in no small part to El Diamante’s use of white oak barrels in the same fashion as bourbon manufacturers use to age their spirits.

From that first taste, I was hit with heavy notes dark chocolate, mild spice, a sweet almost akin to a caramel popcorn flavor, hazelnut and the occasional notes of toffee. You can see how aging the anejo an additional three years and one day(The Reposado is aged for 364 days) allows these flavors to mature further.

Final Score: 8.5/10